Oprah Tues, Feb. 21, 2006

Old Feb 21st, 2006, 05:47 PM
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Oprah Tues, Feb. 21, 2006

I missed the show, but have heard much about it from others. Sounds like she did a great job covering current conditions in Mississippi and Louisiana even this long after Hurricane Katrina. I hope to see this show in reruns soon. If you saw it, PLEASE share what you were impressed by or what moved you most. Thanks!
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Old Feb 21st, 2006, 06:58 PM
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I'm not sure if you can get it where you are, but they replay her shows at l:30am on our local station.
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Old Feb 22nd, 2006, 03:20 AM
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I saw part of the show and was amazed that in a country like America, we can leave people living in those conditions. There was a tent city. No plumbing, just porta-potties. Hundreds of families living like that when down the road sat hundreds of empty trailers FEMA had sent, but NOT given to anyone to use!!! Almost six months have gone by and the area is still devastated. People across the country are not aware of the conditions down there. Mississippi and New Orleans still need a LOT of help!!!
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Old Feb 22nd, 2006, 05:04 AM
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Do not worry Bush will send Cheney down there to take care of things...sort of a hunting trip.
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Old Feb 22nd, 2006, 06:46 AM
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There are many places in the deep South that are not close to normal and still leveled for the most part that are outside of NO in Feb. 2006.

Our town in IL has adopted Farley, AL and have it just about half rebuilt, although it will lose population from before Katrina. Individuals can do much more than bureaucratics and politicos can.

Many of the misplaced people were multi-generational locals who literally do not have solid land to return to in or near NO.

From what I read, before anything there needs to be a solid engineering plan put into place- not exactly comparable- but similar to that used in Holland. Nothing like the levees in use now.

It will cost immense amounts of money and there will have to be some kind of protection for those funds, so that they do not get sucked up in the local corruption: Re the phantom police force and the buses never used, with phantom maintenance workers and drivers.

Our Bayou people are all gone now, but some of them literally never went to school, never had seen a doctor, never had seen the inside of a dentist's office- and far more I could relate. This is BEFORE Katrina. The problem is complex beyond a storm. But the least they could do is fix the flooding problem or not allow people to live there- period, IMHO.

It is doable if the money, will and graft are all at the right levels.

There are just as bad spots in all of our big cities too. I've seen places that would do well to have a port-a-potty on the stairs landings.
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Old Feb 22nd, 2006, 07:23 AM
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it's so sad that it seems like the government is doing nothing but tying itself up in red tape. There's a real lack of leadership in this country, starting at the very top.
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Old Feb 22nd, 2006, 08:14 AM
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Because this is such a huge natural disaster (square miles and population wise), we are seeing how many holes there are in federal programs like the Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA and all sorts of emergency aid in our country. Unfortunately, not much has been changed in those areas in decades. It amazes me the amount of money that is now being spent because of this disaster, yet even back in the 70s, 80s & 90s southern Louisiana and New Orleans needed and requested improved levee systems. I'm sure the Mississippi Gulf Coast was doing the same. Prevention could have saved this country millions. And now, sadly, this situation is quickly being forgotten and these areas desperately need the policy makers to stay on task! We all need to contact our state's legislators to remember the stricken Gulf south, and change policies to protect all of us in case our area experiences a natural disaster in the near future!
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Old Feb 22nd, 2006, 08:23 AM
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Not just now with this administration at all, this has been happening with NO and most of Louisana since the days of Huey Long. To have the actualities and physical reality of those levees the way that they were/ are/ have been for a half century or more- and consider them "fine" as status quo is more than a large negative, going back to- at minimum- the last 5 or 6 presidencies. The USA Army Corps of Engineers are no dumbies they have been saying so for 60 years at least, that I have read.

Farther- since post Civil War. And political pull, corrupt power entities and graft have been rampant in that area since those days. They've sucked up most of the pork barrel funds, including the pay for police that were never really "hired" and have made any easy alterations to the port or delta nearly impossible over time within their own agendas/controls. They tend to block federal programs on a kind of "states' rights" platform that keeps all the power at home with the homeboys.

Tourists just see the party side of NO and aren't seeing the contexts of this entire society or it's troubled, troubled history. There aren't going to be any quick fixes and there haven't been in the last 100 years.

It's far more than a problem of leadership. Most activists don't want a historic lesson, just quick solutions. There are no quick solutions to poverty, poverty pockets most anywhere, and here the problems are multipled by environment. There's more rhetoric than action in any of the activist or politco agendas.

It reminds me greatly of Sam Kinison's (sp.?) comedy routine where he screams over and over at the people in the Sahara and constant other arrid famine regions in Africa, "Just walk and go get food somewhere else. Food doesn't grow here anymore".

And it isn't funny- it's heartbreaking.

The truth is that we have fewer poor people in the USA than in most countries worldwide. Poor to this level anyway. And those who are do have rights- and can not be controlled like the million pawns that were moved out of the now flooded river dam projects in China, for example, and given not one iota for their lost land. And all the empathy in the world doesn't do as much as one person helping them to get started in a place or near "their" place with a person to person approach.

Most of these people will have to learn to live in an environment that is different from the one in which they came.

It is not easy, nor always solved by money being throw at it. It's as complex as Civil War, Black migration, and lots of related roots that formed this population.

First, fix the damn levees, or engineer a system that works or don't let people live there. That's what the Federal Gov. CAN do. It would be about as popular as Abe Lincoln's absolute dictates to the Southern states in 1860.
Strong leadership there, allright- and he knew what the response would be.

I watched Oprah. Her shows are good reminders but I feel that it makes people think/believe that they have done something to be sympathetic, or empathetic, or give money. They get self-righteous like they have all the definitive solutions. This one would make Solomon's head spin.

Sorry for the lecture. I just spoke with an evacuee and she doesn't want to "change" any part of her own lifestyle. It also has to work both ways. In the long run, helping ourselves too. Life is change.
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Old Feb 22nd, 2006, 08:30 AM
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Did Oprah herself even go down there???
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Old Feb 22nd, 2006, 08:39 AM
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JJ5, you forgot to mention the millions of dollars FEMA is throwing at contractors . . . many of whom were never approved for disaster recovery services and many more who never completed their job and still got paid. That has nothing to do with Louisiana/Mississippi gool ole boy politics, or whatever you'd like to call it. That's federal, and that's my tax dollar, too!
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Old Feb 22nd, 2006, 08:47 AM
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Mr. Traveler, I am not a regular viewer of Oprah's show, but I've heard she visited early on after the hurricane. Today's show is about the subdivision in Houston for which she raised money (and continues to solicit contributions) to build for Katrina victims. That is wonderful, too, but what about those people still living in horrid conditions in Mississippi at ground zero? Who will step up for them?
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Old Feb 22nd, 2006, 08:52 AM
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Oh, don't worry..once Trent gets his hair cut and makes certain those casinos are up and running he'll tend to the unfortunates.
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Old Feb 22nd, 2006, 09:06 AM
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The solutions aren't going to be one of argumentativeness and blame. Wasted energy as far as I'm concerned. Any big bureaucracy loses tons of money between the source and the intended output. I'm a cynic about big government and big government agencies in tota. The tax dollars lost on other things are sometimes worse than FEMA's. FEMA is a mix-muck of purposes to begin with. Organized committee "decisions" mostly with political ties making the job inroad, and we all know what committee compromises lead to. What is the quote, "A camel is a horse put together by a committee."

In just one other program I have personal knowledge of, most- more than 1/2 of millions and millions - slanted for the Head Start program in Chicago went to Blackstone Rangers/Nation's purchase of buildings, cars and self- appointed jobs. After a couple of years the program itself was little more than lists of "phantom" names on Federal quota requirement forms ready to hand in-receiprents actually being the desk sitters at 26th and Calif. and the gangs who took the bulk of the federal funds. This has been going on since Lyndon Johnson, BayouGal, no recent doings.

I hear from medics who access the area that Louisanna has been worse.
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Old Feb 22nd, 2006, 09:09 AM
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I saw it, too. The biggest eye-opener to me was the endless number of new trailers sitting on the FEMA lot, going nowhere, while people live in contaminated filth just down the road. I also saw a news report recently about hundreds and hundreds of FEMA mobile homes which FEMA has declared 'uninhabitable' simply because they have sunk into the muddy lot. They are "uninhabitable" compared to the poor elderly woman's apartment without a roof and without electricity and plumbing, where she's lived since the storm? What a bureaucratic waste!
I was also moved by the school teacher/ parent and her family who now are on food stamps, and have to keep paying the mortgage on their family home which no longer exists.
I'm glad Oprah publicized what a sad state the entire Gulf is still in. We have all forgotten them. Let's all contribute what we can to help-- money, time, labor...
 
Old Feb 22nd, 2006, 09:19 AM
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JJ5, if you reread all my posts on this thread, you surely will see that I have no argument here, only concern. I live in the affected area, and I experienced, and continue to experience, many personal and physical losses due to Katrina, and wanted to hear about Oprah's show. And yes, I was alive when LBJ was in office, so I know the history, too. I was adding to your soapbox, not contesting it. My concern is for people, not politics, but right now we need politics to help our people.

I am a nurse, but I still don't understand what your statement about medics means. I physically see the damage and experience the emotional upset on a daily basis. If you have visited here since Katrina, then I think you most certainly understand where I am coming from and realize that NO ONE here wants to argue . . .we want practical solutions, and a dose of kindness never hurts.
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Old Feb 22nd, 2006, 09:24 AM
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Thanks for the review of the show, Maureen B. I hope it reruns soon so I can see it, and I hope many eyes are opened by it.
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Old Feb 22nd, 2006, 09:31 AM
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Guess I am just confused here...why doesn't the federal government fix the levees and move out those trailers?
If the President wanted it done, it would get done...
Why don't Republicans feel the buck stops with the President?
I don't want my tax dollars wasted anymore than anyone else, but I'd certainly rather have them used helping out people in the Katrina situation than in the Middle East, where there's been amounts of graft that make any fraud from Katrina look like pennies...
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Old Feb 22nd, 2006, 09:33 AM
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Practical solutions may involve changes that seem unkind. Kindness helps but it won't solve some of these base root problems that stem from long term history.

I am not being unkind to any evacuee or victim of disaster, just helping people realistically access their choices- and entering Neverland is not going to be on the list. You said I did not include this or that. There's a lot I did not include, because people want to take rote political sides/stances in NO. Those people who are in power there are not particularly on "their" side, but they don't understand that complexity.

Those standing trailers are no different than the whole cooked turkeys we have been throwing out for 20 plus years for our "hot" school lunches. The kids don't WANT turkey.

Sorry, I just can't see that you are going to get answers for this through lots more government.
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Old Feb 22nd, 2006, 10:19 AM
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JJ5, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I personally think it's sad you'd compare people without homes yet still paying substantial mortgages to throwing out turkeys. I think a visit here would change your tune. I hope your area is spared any natural or manmade disasters, ours has not been so fortunate. I think you just want to argue about something and I'm not biting any longer.
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Old Feb 22nd, 2006, 10:37 AM
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MrTraveler,

To answer your question, Oprah has been at the forefront of delivering goods and services to the Katrina victims by the truckloads, she's also spearheaded a home building campaign for them. In fact, on today's show, the families will move into the homes provided by her angel network and all of the wonderful people who contributed to it: http://www2.oprah.com/uyl/katrina/ho...mes_main.jhtml

She is one of the few people who continually discuss how the victims have been marginalized and overlooked.
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